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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Package Design

I have always been intrigued with design, specifically package design. There are so many ways to present an item, and yet so many designs exists for items of similar fashion. For example, I have at my desk to soda cups. One is from Longhorn, a steakhouse restaurant chain in the Jacksonville Area, another is from Daily's, the local store in the Shell Gas station. They both served as drink holders and hold the same amount, yet one is skinny in the bottom and the other one is straight up tall.

I can only imagine the meetings that took place to come up with each one of those designs. The arguments taking place, "no that's not going to fit in a standard cup holder", others stating, "have you any idea how long the straw is going to have to be?"

The bottom line us that there are many creative individuals in this world. You see them as inventors, marketers, advertising agents, and many other fields. I hope to one day come up with something as brilliant as these designs a friend forwarded in an email:













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Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Tech Sales Person

Every once in a while I know I shouldn't answer my phone, but I'm a senior member within my organization and I pride myself on addressing everyone's needs even if it mean being on the phone for an hour discussing the latest blogging strategies or working out a marketing and design plan with someone.

Since I only deal on the phone with VIP I seldom purposely send them to voicemail. This morning my phone rang, I quickly looked around the office and notice it wasn;t one of my colleagues calling. I thought about letting the voicemail pick up the phone, but my thoughts quickly died and I answered the phone. What do you know, it was this account manager who has been calling me once a month for the past 6 month. Even though I keep reminding him that I buy and deal straight with Dell he insits on calling. I decided to throw him a bone and make his day by telling him that I'm looking for a couple of desktops and four laptops. At first, he thought I was going to go with my usual, I'm all set, we're in a recession, etc, but he did a flip back when I told him what I needed. He even remember that I only buy Dell and told me that they recently partnered with Dell and he could get me better deals that the Gold level account I have with Dell. I though he was the real deal, a sales guy that actually listen and remember my needs.

I just received an email and all he quoted me was IBM and HP. Don't get me wrong I think those are fine brands, but I only buy Dell, not because I like them. As a side note, I should mention that I'm very dissapointed with Dell recently and have receive nothing, but grieve with the new Desktop and Laptop I purchase two month ago. The only reason why I buy Dell is because of our corporate account with them. I digress, my point is that out of the five quotes I received, none are for Dell computers.

The bottom line is that as a salesperson you need to be sharp. Not only should you be able to get through on the cold call, but you have to pay attention and remember what your customers tell you.

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posted by Death is Forever at 8:26 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

Friday, January 04, 2008

Albino Whitetail Deer

A colleague sent me this and I thought it interesting enough to share. Here goes:

This was sent by a man in Rhinelander, Wisconsin

A very eventful day around here... A once in many lifetimes experience! I saw this lil' feller run out in front of a car-- thought it was a lost baby goat. Stopped to get it, and WOW!! A real Albino Whitetail Deer. Just hours old, but doing fine. No Momma deer around. Another car nearly hit it in front of me ....

Well, he is THE neatest thing any of us ever saw. And such a 'freak of nature', that only 1 in more than a million are even born. He took his bottle of food, followed us around the house, doing great So, we called the Zoo &Fossil Rim, who were both interested, but we're going to send him to a Rehab farm. Maybe he will make it in captivity somewhere and be appreciated. So rare... Sure wanted to keep him tho. but, not the thing to do. And not LEGAL either. Here are a couple of pictures to show you. He was snow white, pink eyes, ears, nose and hooves. Kids called him POWDER. He was SO small. That is my shoe lying beside him... WOW..how cool is that??


The bottom line is that there are many strange and unusual animals around. This is proof of what mother nature could bring us. In this day and age of climate challenges and changing, it is nice to see that some surprises are still good.

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posted by Death is Forever at 10:37 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Happy 2008!!!!

The year is already off to a good start based on a very successful Christmas Holiday. I received all the presents I could have hoped for, and was off from work for the entire Christmas week. I didn't gained any weight, mostly because I had a cold for the first few days I was off. I finally got to play golf and found myself quite rusty rounding out 18 holes at a shameful 108.

The family trips were uneventful and everyone got here when they were supposed to. On the way home, however, American Airlines once again disappointed and left my parents stranded for 8 hours with a broken down plane resulting in a transfer of airports from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami via taxi. $104 complements of AA.

The family visit was just wonderful enough that now my sister and brother-in-law are frantically looking for jobs in the Jacksonville area as they cannot wait to come enjoy the great weather and cheap housing opportunities that the Jax market has to offer.

On the Web front, 2008 has been declared the year for online marketing by the President of Forbes.com. Here is the excerpt:

NAME: Jim Spanfeller
TITLE: President and CEO, Forbes.com
2008 PREDICTION: If history looks back at 2007 as the tipping point for interactive media and the ad dollars that have migrated to the Web, pushing it to a position of prominence as a central media platform for advertisers, 2008 will be the year of the Interactive Marketer. CMOs now get the Web and have personal experience around its ability to power their brands, activate their customers and fuel their data analysis and marketing allocation optimization. The Web is still only at the beginning of its evolution and will remain a source of media innovation for some time, but the focus going forward will be less about the media and more about the marketer. The digitization of media will continue to disrupt the traditional media model and we will see more “late to the party” web acquisition and initiatives from major media players. From this perspective, 2008 will be a make or break year for companies like Time Warner and many of the major newspaper companies in the country.

The bottom line is that if all goes as plan I too shall benefit from the Web in 2008. Hope you have a healthy and wealthy 2008. May your worst day in 2008 be your best day of 2007. Stay Tuned...

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posted by Death is Forever at 8:05 PM 0 Comments Links to this post